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Genome Study Provides a Census of Early Humans
NY Times (Science Times) ^ | January 18, 2010 | NICHOLAS WADE

Posted on 01/19/2010 4:21:03 AM PST by Pharmboy

From the composition of just two human genomes, geneticists have computed the size of the human population 1.2 million years ago from which everyone in the world is descended.

They put the number at 18,500 people, but this refers only to breeding individuals, the “effective” population. The actual population would have been about three times as large, or 55,500.

Comparable estimates for other primates then are 21,000 for chimpanzees and 25,000 for gorillas. In biological terms, it seems, humans were not a very successful species, and the strategy of investing in larger brains than those of their fellow apes had not yet produced any big payoff. Human population numbers did not reach high levels until after the advent of agriculture.

Geneticists have long known that the ancestors of modern humans numbered as few as 10,000 at some time in the last 100,000 years. The critically low number suggested that some catastrophe, like disease or climate change induced by a volcano, had brought humans close to the brink of extinction.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: catastrophism; godsgravesglyphs; humanevolution
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To: gleeaikin

I think that one consideration to keep in mind is that the pre-Toba human population was very widely dispersed throughout Africa and Asia, at least, and maybe into Europe. There is no reason to think that in some of the societies located east of Toba might not have been quite successful and populous.

And, because the ash cloud went west, they would have not been directly affected by the ashfall. Of course, these societies might have been put under considerable stress by the cold temperatures worldwide in the years after the eruption, but maybe not lethally so.

It is also the case that most human populations east of Toba are mappable to the modern genome and area clearly the results of post Toba migrations starting maybe 50,000 years ago. Who knows what might have happened to the archaic populations the new arrivals might have found there?


41 posted on 01/20/2010 11:51:04 PM PST by John Valentine
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To: gleeaikin

42 posted on 01/22/2010 5:02:08 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Happy New Year! Freedom is Priceless.)
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